Sir Roger Tomkys

Last evening about seventy students from our college and Corpus Christy went to see Sir Roger Tomkys, former master of Pembroke, speak. He has been a British ambassador to Serbia, along with a couple more Middle Eastern and African countries that I don't recall. He was also the Foreign Secretary and therefore actually wrote policy in the early nineties. I originally thought he was speaking on the Middle East and so lured Heather into going, but actually he ended up reading a paper he wrote a year ago on British policy after 9/11.
It was un-dramatically presented to say the least, and Heather seemed about to fall asleep in front of me. I would say his general premise was that Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher before him, played the role of best friend to the U.S. president in order to both exert power beyond their immediate abilities through the wider range of U.S. influence--while also maintaining allegiances beyond the European Union, which is itself a hotly contested issue over here. In other words, foreign policy in an exercise in power, to exert as much, wherever one can, for the good of party, country, morality, or whatnot. (The whatnot is for Willie, of course) Very realist interpretation.
My British professors and lecturers, seem very realist indeed. My spy professor, of course, blames these damn liberal democracies for tying the hands of intelligence organizations and causing a width and breadth of disasters since the late 19th century. He skips over, without any comment, the parts where citizens have their rights and lives violently tread upon. He even compared Bush to Churchill as towing the difficult and unpopular line toward military-growth and warfare. 'No one wants to believe that we're going to have to go to war' he said in his thick British accent between sips of glass-bottled, sparkling, water.

Well, midterms tomorrow...two more classes today...off to study and drink tea. By the way, it is so cold here...so very cold...its like a harsh winter day in San Diego every day of the week. Enough to make me long for Utah's sweltering 100s.